Google’s Semantic Search: Changing SEO

Although minor changes in SEO can be expected from time to time, it has remained fairly the same for the most part. SEO has been driven by keywords which follow a common structure. It includes meta tags, links, content and a specific URL structure. You will always see keywords in SEO. The two have become inseparable.

Even with Panda, Venice, Your World and Search Plus, keywords remain unscathed. However, according to Google Search Executive Amit Singhai, this could all change when human element enters the game.

Semantic Search Explained

Semantic search understands the user’s needs by using artificial intelligence. With it you will be able to come up with more refined answers because it focuses on the meaning of the query instead of just looking at the keywords. As you may already know, when you use Google today to search for information, it will give you results which are strictly based on the keywords you have entered. In summary, Google gives you guesses about the things you are looking for.

Semantic search aims to change all this by taking a look at the words you have entered, their relationships, and what these words mean. Google will then be more able to recognize words and will be able to give you answers which are more accurate or closer to what you are looking for.

Contrary to what most people think, semantic search is not a new concept. It is a concept which has been entertained as early as 2008. However, it has only been gaining more attention now. This is largely in part of Siri and Google Assistant, Google’s answer to Apple’s popular application.

Support for Accuracy

What will support Google’s effort to change searches? The answer is Google’s Knowledge Graph. This will only help understand what people are searching for; it will also help give contextual information about the search query.

Will This Change SEO?

Time and again it has been shown that keywords can be easily manipulated. Placing a certain number of keywords in your article can help you get first page ranking in Google. However, this is all going to change with semantic search. Not only will you have to put keywords in all the right places, you also need to figure out exactly what the meaning is behind the words. The content must be specifically created around the specific keywords. Searches using keywords will be focused on what that person who is searching for the keywords mean.

Content for the semantic search world will revolve around answering the specific questions people have regarding a keyword. This means that you will not only be competing with other companies for ranking, clicks and exposure in Google, you will be competing with Google itself.

This is indeed a big welcome change from what we are seeing today but this is a change for the better. Users will get exactly what they are looking for and sites will be forced to re-evaluate their content. They will have to write real useful content if they want to show up in Google rankings.